There is an old
English adage “Behind the success of every man, there is a woman”. It
is of course universally accepted that a woman can be the maker of the
brilliant careers of many a man. Its reverse is also true, especially in
the case of legendry Punjabi singer Surinder Kaur. Although the credit for
discovering Surinder Kaur’s latent talent as a versatile singer is
attributed to one of the pioneers amongst India’s music directors Master
Ghulam Haider, but she was groomed into classical music by another music
director Master Inayat Hussain and was minutely trained by Sardar Budh
Singh Taan. All these music directors hailed from Lahore. But there can be
no substitute for the husband, who can stand by you through thick and
thin.

Surinder Kaur’s
real training as a singer of light music happened between 1948 and 1952 in
India’s leading film city of Bombay. The music directors who shaped the
destiny of Surinder Kaur into a great singer were Pandit Husna Lal Bhagat
Ram, Showqat Dehlavi, Ustad Alla Rakha Qureishi, Ghulam Haider, Chitalkar
Ram Chandra, Vinod, Shyam Sunder, Master Hans Raj Behl and S. Mohinder.
The poet who helped Surinder Kaur initially in Bombay was D.N. Madhok.

But more than all the above mentioned music directors, the person,
who singlehandedly guided her destiny the most was her husband Professor
Joginder Singh Sodhi. Sardar Sodhi hailed from Ferozepore. After his
marriage to Surinder Kaur, this professor made it an integral aim of his
life to navigate his wife’s genius into unprecedented greatness. He
first moved for a shortwhile to Bombay, where Surinder Kaur had embarked
upon a career as a playback singer in Hindi films. After Surinder Kaur
decided to make a move to New Dehi, or after Joginder Singh Sodhi thought
it appropriate to move closer to their roots in Punjab, they made a very
successful and eventful move to New Delhi. This was in 1952 and the
refugees from Pakistan were still moving to Delhi.

Surinder Kaur 1929-2006. N. Delhi. Photo by Balwant Gargi. circa
1952

While in New Delhi, Sardar
Joginder Singh Sodhi took a professorial job. After finishing his daily
academic responsibilities during and after college hours, Professor Sodhi
will start going through the recent poetry of the all time great poets and
lyricists of Punjabi language. He will meticulously read through the works
of Amrita Pritam, the folk poet Nand Lal Nurpuri, Dhani Ram Chatrik,
Professor Mohan Singh, Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Bishan Singh Upashak and
Parkash Saathi to name a few. Every few days, Joginder Singh Sodhi will
identify a piece of poetry for Surinder Kaur to sing and record. This
continued till 1976, the year of his death at a young age.

When Surinder Kaur was too busy in her profession, Professor Sodhi
used to do the rounds of various music directors based in Delhi. He will
discuss the chosen lyrics with the music director. The music director will
come up with a suitable “Taal” and the “Raaga”. The music director
will also compose a number of would be tunes. One of these tunes used to
become the common choice of Professor Sodhi and the music maker. Before
Surinder Kaur arrived at the studios for rehearsals and eventual
recordings, the compositions were already finalized and fine tuned.
Several times for the duets with elder sister Parkash Kaur also, the tunes
were pre-planned between the music director and Professor Sodhi. Those
were the golden days of Punjabi music and Surinder Kaur was acknowledged
as the queen of Punjabi music. The Delhi based music directors included K.
Panna Lal, Kesar Singh Narula, Mujjaddid Niazi and Pandit Amar Nath
(Junior) to name a few.

Within a few years, Surinder Kaur had attained the status of being
the most popular Punjabi singer in India. Then, after a decade and half of
a very successful career, her mentor and best wisher Professor Joginder
Singh Sodhi passed away in 1976. Initially Surinder did not realize as to
what she had lost. But as the time passed, the reality of the colossal
loss dawned on her.

After her husband’s sad demise, quite naturally Surinder Kaur
started singing very sad music. At All India Radio, she started singing
sad “Urdu Ghazals” composed by all time greats like Mirza Ghalib.
Since these were the renditions coming from her heart and soul, they had a
tremendous impact on the audiences. Some of the Punjabi Ghazals recorded
by Surinder Kaur after the death of her husband have also attained the
status of evergreen pieces of music. During the nineteen seventies
Surinder Kaur recorded several Punjabi Ghazals. Some of these, such as
“Vichhrhe chiran ton uh mainoo supne che mil gaye, aya unhan daa naa
mere athroo nikal gaye”, “Inhan akhiyan che pawan kivenye kajla veh
akhiyan che toon vasda”, “Mehram dilan de maahi, morhen ga kad muharan,
din raat tarhaphde ne arman kayi hazaran” and “Oh barha belihaaz ki
kariye, bewafa da illaj ki kariye” are still very fresh in the memories
of listeners. Some of these “Ghazals” Surinder Kaur rendered again
after the death of her husband for All India Radio. These recordings
became Surinder Kaur’s most emotionally rendered numbers.

After 1980, Surinder Kaur’s
voice, due to age related factors, started getting affected. Surinder Kaur
had three daughters, but no son. Surinder Kaur started calling one of her
biggest admirers Iqbal Singh Mahal of metropolitan Toronto in Canada as
her son. Iqbal Mahal also gave a lot of encouragement and moral support to
her to sing without inhibitions during the course of her foreign tours.
Iqbal Mahal proved to be a true son. Surinder Kaur’s elder daughter
Dolly Guleria, a popular singer in her own right, now settled in
Chandigarh metropolitan area also became a big moral support to her.
Jaspal Singh Suri, the only son of her elder sister Parkash Kaur has also
all along been a source of strength to her. Surinder Kaur visited North
America several times. Two of her daughters are now settled in America.
Once during her 1983 visit to the East Coast of the US, she had a very
successful concert in New Jersey, which I arranged. It was there that she
called me also as her son. It gave me a lot of emotional pleasure. Again
in 1985, she had a successful tour of the tri-state area around New York
City. I am happy to be associated with it. Surinder Kaur had performed
admirably at one very largely attended concert in Manhattan.

In 1993, we in New
Jersey, celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Surinder Kaur’s professional
singing. S. Mohinder, one of the all time great music directors of India,
was invited to award a gold medal to Surinder Kaur. That was a historic
moment for us the hosts. After that the professional singing by this
velvety voice started tapering off slowly. In 2006 her health deteriorated
considerably. Surinder Kaur bade her final farewell to this world in June
of the same year while under treatment in a New Jersey hospital.